Inside The Bills

Bills new defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz would be the first to tell you that the numbers do not tell the whole story when it comes to football. At the same time however, he’s also smart enough to know they have a value in putting a coordinator or head coach in a better position to make intelligent decisions.

Armed with an economics degree from Georgetown, Schwartz has always been a numbers guy, but he has enough sense to know the proper place for advanced metrics in football.

A few years ago New York Times and now NFL.com columnist Judy Battista wrote a story on Schwartz’s very successful Titans defense in 2008, which at the time was leading the league in points allowed. It’s a good peek into how prepared and meticulous Schwartz is when it comes to getting ready for an opponent. And how he applies advanced statistics to his preparation methods.

It started back when he was doing special projects as an unpaid college and pro scout under Bill Belichick when he was head coach of the Cleveland Browns. Schwartz’s findings showed that fumbles are a random occurrence and that there was no correlation between being a bad football team and fumbling. Belichick did not believe him.

Schwartz’s respect for analytics should fall right in line with those subscribed to by Bills head coach Doug Marrone.